Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories

[OldTrees1]

Is this not normal?

I personally have (almost) never played under a DM in any system that didnt make heavy use of homebrew monsters and / or templates, and most modules I have read have atleast one unique monster with some sort of gimmick.

Even if sticking clearly to published monsters, D&D has so many with so many crazy abilities that unless the DM actually lets the players have an open set of monster manuals during the game they will still be caught of guard frequuently as even the biggest nerd cant memorize them all.

In this particular case the monster was just a bog standard ghost with no special abilities or customization whatsoever.

No, it is not normal (which is a bit odd). That does not make it bad in general. However neither the frequency nor the general merits matter in your case.

Your case in specific has players feeling paranoid, not trusting you, and complaining about the homebrews. So stop doing something that is hurting the group enjoyment? Your player's can't trust themselves, the world, the rules, or you. That is a huge red flag that you are going to be addressing in one way or another until you resolve it.

[kyoryu]

Is this not normal?

I personally have (almost) never played under a DM in any system that didnt make heavy use of homebrew monsters and / or templates, and most modules I have read have atleast one unique monster with some sort of gimmick.

Even if sticking clearly to published monsters, D&D has so many with so many crazy abilities that unless the DM actually lets the players have an open set of monster manuals during the game they will still be caught of guard frequuently as even the biggest nerd cant memorize them all.

In this particular case the monster was just a bog standard ghost with no special abilities or customization whatsoever.

The issue isn't homebrew monsters.

The issue is with homebrew monsters that have strong enough special abilities that not knowing about the abilities causes TPKs or near-guaranteed loss, while simultaneously not giving clues about said abilities, and making the encounter lethal enough that the party doesn't seem to have the ability to discover those abilities, while often (apparently, based on your description, which could be wrong) pulling the abilities out of the hat at the last moment.

If I fight a flaming bird and it suddenly explodes into a ball of flame, I think "oh, I should have seen that coming." If I fight an orc that does the same thing, I think "WTF was that?" If I fight an orc with red robes, a flaming staff, and a fiery aura that does that, I think "oh, I should have seen that coming."

And, no, having hp damage buff a ghost that is totally immune to hp damage is NOT a standard ghost. Literally, not by the stat block you posted.

But again, that makes sense right? Like, if I fight a ghost and my weapon goes through it I think "yeah, that makes sense."

It's like a monster movie - when the monster shows some ability they have, they usually do it either on some less important character, or in a way that doesn't immediately threaten the main characters. This way, the audience knows what the characters are up against and it's interesting how they're going to overcome it.

You want to disclose more info, and or hint at the abilities more, to get more of the reveals into the "that makes sense" category and away from the "WTF" category. Personally, I think it'd be best to over-disclose to begin with, and make sure that teh encounters are interesting even if you know the gimmick already

[Talakeal]

No, it is not normal (which is a bit odd). That does not make it bad in general. However neither the frequency nor the general merits matter in your case.

Your case in specific has players feeling paranoid, not trusting you, and complaining about the homebrews. So stop doing something that is hurting the group enjoyment? Your player's can't trust themselves, the world, the rules, or you. That is a huge red flag that you are going to be addressing in one way or another until you resolve it.

The issue isn't homebrew monsters.

The issue is with homebrew monsters that have strong enough special abilities that not knowing about the abilities causes TPKs or near-guaranteed loss, while simultaneously not giving clues about said abilities, and making the encounter lethal enough that the party doesn't seem to have the ability to discover those abilities, while often (apparently, based on your description, which could be wrong) pulling the abilities out of the hat at the last moment.

If I fight a flaming bird and it suddenly explodes into a ball of flame, I think "oh, I should have seen that coming." If I fight an orc that does the same thing, I think "WTF was that?" If I fight an orc with red robes, a flaming staff, and a fiery aura that does that, I think "oh, I should have seen that coming."

And, no, having hp damage buff a ghost that is totally immune to hp damage is NOT a standard ghost. Literally, not by the stat block you posted.

But again, that makes sense right? Like, if I fight a ghost and my weapon goes through it I think "yeah, that makes sense."

It's like a monster movie - when the monster shows some ability they have, they usually do it either on some less important character, or in a way that doesn't immediately threaten the main characters. This way, the audience knows what the characters are up against and it's interesting how they're going to overcome it.

You want to disclose more info, and or hint at the abilities more, to get more of the reveals into the "that makes sense" category and away from the "WTF" category. Personally, I think it'd be best to over-disclose to begin with, and make sure that teh encounters are interesting even if you know the gimmick already

I literally don't know what encounter(s) you guys are refering to. Could you give me some specific examples?

There has been one TPK in my game and a couple of close calls, none of them have been caused by surprise abilities.

Likewise, the legendary actions in the OP were not anying homebrew or custom, just a standard dragon using its by the book abilities,

Likewise, I was referring to the mirror ghost as a standard ghost, not the vestige in my other thread.

[zinycor]

I literally don't know what encounter(s) you guys are refering to. Could you give me some specific examples?

There has been one TPK in my game and a couple of close calls, none of them have been caused by surprise abilities.

Likewise, the legendary actions in the OP were not anying homebrew or custom, just a standard dragon using its by the book abilities,

Likewise, I was referring to the mirror ghost as a standard ghost, not the vestige in my other thread.

From the top of my mind:

1) Troll cleric casts some sort of low level geass on the PCs.
2) Monster immune to hp loss.

[Talakeal]

From the top of my mind:

1) Troll cleric casts some sort of low level geass on the PCs.
2) Monster immune to hp loss.

Those were events that occured. Neither was a TPK, or really a surprise for that matter.

[kyoryu]

Those were events that occured. Neither was a TPK, or really a surprise for that matter.

I thought the remnant thing ended up being a (willing) TPK?

It doesn't actually matter. You're focusing on the nits, when the main thrust is:

Disclose more to your players. If you pull stuff out of your sleeves, they're going to feel like it's unfair and play paranoid. If you telegraph what the monsters are capable in some way, they won't.

That's the main point. The rest is just surrounding stuff.

And it doesn't matter who is "right" here. It may well be that another group would be fine with this. What does matter is you're not getting the results you want.

[Talakeal]

I thought the remnant thing ended up being a (willing) TPK?

It doesn't actually matter. You're focusing on the nits, when the main thrust is:

Disclose more to your players. If you pull stuff out of your sleeves, they're going to feel like it's unfair and play paranoid. If you telegraph what the monsters are capable in some way, they won't.

That's the main point. The rest is just surrounding stuff.

And it doesn't matter who is "right" here. It may well be that another group would be fine with this. What does matter is you're not getting the results you want.

I get what you are saying, I really do, I am just trying to figure out what is the right amount of information.

For one thing, my players dont know the monsters very well to begin with, and so just saying "You see a Glabrezu" wouldnt tell them any more than "You see a large demonic humanoid with four arms, crablike claws, and the head of a hound."

As an example, a few years back the PCs encountered some griffons and wanted to ride them. Now, the MM has a huge list of requirements for riding a griffon, none of which were met, yet the players still assumed I was just making up excuses to shoot down their awesome plan even though I was playing it totally by the book.

[OldTrees1]

I literally don't know what encounter(s) you guys are refering to. Could you give me some specific examples?

There has been one TPK in my game and a couple of close calls, none of them have been caused by surprise abilities.

Likewise, the legendary actions in the OP were not anying homebrew or custom, just a standard dragon using its by the book abilities,

Likewise, I was referring to the mirror ghost as a standard ghost, not the vestige in my other thread.

Talakeal at this point I have started to treat all your threads as one large megathread. So I can understand you not knowing "which encounter?" when I am talking about ALL of them.

Talakeal, we are communicating how you make your players feel. We are not arguing about what you think of the encounters. You have made your players paranoid despite your personal estimation of the encounters. You have made them distrustful of you regardless of how much you trust yourself. You have made them take issue with your homebrew even when you were not homebrewing. That is how badly you have sown distrust.

1) They HATE asymmetry because they don't (not "can't") trust you with it. This was the topic of this Legendary Action thread.
2) They could not trust your clues because they can't trust your homebrew. This was the recent Ghost of Violence encounter.
3) In several of your recent threads you have talked about a couple of players that are unwilling to get any limited use resource. Want to guess why? They don't trust you! They think those are "waste money" traps. Then when you criticized them for not buying those resources the started to double think "A) Talakeal is trying to bait us into wasting our money" and "B) Talakeal is going to build an encounter based on whatever we don't buy".
4) The effects themselves induced paranoid. This is the topic with the subthread about the mirror assassin curse. And it equally applies to the Ghost of Violence suddenly being buffed effect. And to some of those legendary actions.

Talakeal, your threads could be published as a book about how you have sown distrust and how your players are immature. You can only control the former so I will only harp on about the former.

Double and Triple down on building trust while avoiding any of the ways you have sown distrust. If you were in a group with a horror story DM that suddenly claimed they want to get better, what could they do to earn your trust? You are that DM in their eyes.

Oh, and allow the players to reference the monster manual at will for the next few months. Disclosing the information will help build trust. Then you can wean them off of the monster manual after trust is rebuilt.

PS: Nitpick: The requirements to ride a Griffon are essentially Nil. You mistook "rearing / training" vs their request of "riding". The training rules are for controlling the Griffon as a mount while in combat. Griffons are intelligent enough that you can already ride them. Diplomacy to convince them to be Friendly would have been a DC 15 and would have been enough. Think about when Gandalf convinced the Lord of ALL Eagles to let Hobbits on for a ride. The Eagle did not need to be trained because it was not being used as a combat mount. If a dragon had attacked in the air, the hobbits would have fallen off and died.

[Talakeal]

Talakeal at this point I have started to treat all your threads as one large megathread. So I can understand you not knowing "which encounter?" when I am talking about ALL of them.

Talakeal, we are communicating how you make your players feel. We are not arguing about what you think of the encounters. You have made your players paranoid despite your personal estimation of the encounters. You have made them distrustful of you regardless of how much you trust yourself. You have made them take issue with your homebrew even when you were not homebrewing. That is how badly you have sown distrust.

1) They HATE asymmetry because they don't (not "can't") trust you with it. This was the topic of this Legendary Action thread.
2) They could not trust your clues because they can't trust your homebrew. This was the recent Ghost of Violence encounter.
3) In several of your recent threads you have talked about a couple of players that are unwilling to get any limited use resource. Want to guess why? They don't trust you! They think those are "waste money" traps. Then when you criticized them for not buying those resources the started to double think "A) Talakeal is trying to bait us into wasting our money" and "B) Talakeal is going to build an encounter based on whatever we don't buy".
4) The effects themselves induced paranoid. This is the topic with the subthread about the mirror assassin curse. And it equally applies to the Ghost of Violence suddenly being buffed effect. And to some of those legendary actions.

Talakeal, your threads could be published as a book about how you have sown distrust and how your players are immature. You can only control the former so I will only harp on about the former.

Double and Triple down on building trust while avoiding any of the ways you have sown distrust. If you were in a group with a horror story DM that suddenly claimed they want to get better, what could they do to earn your trust? You are that DM in their eyes.

Oh, and allow the players to reference the monster manual at will for the next few months. Disclosing the information will help build trust. Then you can wean them off of the monster manual after trust is rebuilt.

PS: Nitpick: The requirements to ride a Griffon are essentially Nil. You mistook "rearing / training" vs their request of "riding". The training rules are for controlling the Griffon as a mount while in combat. Griffons are intelligent enough that you can already ride them. Diplomacy to convince them to be Friendly would have been a DC 15 and would have been enough. Think about when Gandalf convinced the Lord of ALL Eagles to let Hobbits on for a ride. The Eagle did not need to be trained because it was not being used as a combat mount. If a dragon had attacked in the air, the hobbits would have fallen off and died.

You keep talking about me sowing distrust, which implies there is something I am doing to cause it, and while I cant rule it out, I am not sure if this is the case. I have played with these guys under other DMs, and they trust me far far far more than they trust these other guys.

They also dont trust one another. I remember one time when a player used the bathroom while I was taking the monster's turn, and when he got back I told him that one of the enemies had crit him. He demanded I reroll it because he didnt see the resuls, and when the rest of the table vouched that I had indeed rolled a natural 20 his response was "The odds of rolling a crit are 1/20, the odds that you guys are all conspiring against me are a hell of a lot higher than that! Now reroll the dice or I am leaving! And he never gamed with us again.

But I am still curious about what you think it is that I am doing to sow distruct. Thats a legit question, not just me being defensive, tone is hard to do in text. I am trying to think about my experiences as a player, and the only DM I really didnt trust pretty much does the opposite of everything I do, so thats no good.

Also, nitpick about your nitpick, yes they wanted to ride the griffons in combat. Also, you missed the part about needing to buy an exotic saddle before being able to ride them at all.

[Eisenheim]

I signed in after years of just lurking to say this. Let that weigh as you wish.

I am just trying to figure out what is the right amount of information.

At the beginning of each encounter, put the statblocks on the table for the players to reference.

That's the right amount of information right now. That's not how you want to run the game, and that's likely, in as much as they know what they want, not how your players want to play either, but any hidden information will just feed the toxic dynamic y'all have going on.

I'd also honestly advise using monsters as written from official books for a while, and avoiding ones that seem to target particular weaknesses of the party, but that matters less. What matters is that you put your cards on the table with these people who are ostensibly your friends.

Do that, and maybe talk through your reasoning and tactics for the monsters as you play out the combat. Give the players every piece of information you possibly can, and either they will begin to trust you, or the situation can't be saved. If everyone is able to reach the emotional maturity level of a teenager, you might be able to salvage things, and then you can start keeping secrets again, but the work of repairing trust can't happen as a side-note to normal play. You need remedial action before you can put up the DM screen.

[OldTrees1]

You keep talking about me sowing distrust, which implies there is something I am doing to cause it, and while I cant rule it out, I am not sure if this is the case. I have played with these guys under other DMs, and they trust me far far far more than they trust these other guys.

Unpacking this:
1) You are less distrusted than some even more distrusted DMs. They still don't trust you. Every single horror story of yours in the past 2 months can be partially attributed to their immature reactions to their distrust in you with some event / ruling / encounter as a catalyst.

Your Griffon example is yet another example of you flat out telling me they don't trust you. Just so I can reply "yeah, they don't trust you. Fix that. Increase Transparency and avoid Homebrew in that case. Give them the opportunity to see you can ride a griffon bareback outside of combat but need to train them and get an exotic saddle if they want mounts."

2) Some of the things you have been doing to sow distrust only have that outcome because they already don't trust you. I can run homebrewed puzzle boss monsters in my own groups without an issue. My DM can run a trap encounter that makes me start to panic and have it increase my trust in them due to their handling of it. Those are playstyles that requires more trust from the players. If you require more trust than you have earned, you sow more distrust.
2a) So difficulty, being coy, homebrewing, using legendary actions, using puzzle monsters, optional side encounters, expecting them to use limited use resources, etc. Those are things you can do once you earn enough trust. Without that trust those actions only sow more distrust. Your players are acting out partially because they don't trust you enough.

3) Some of the things you do to sow distrust are from your bad habits you have yet to shake off. Other posters have focused on those so I have not kept track of that list. However I do remember you sometimes fail to demonstrate you have heard a player's grievance, understand that grievance, and desire to address that grievance in whatever way is best for the group, especially if it is not your preference.

They also dont trust one another. I remember one time when a player used the bathroom while I was taking the monster's turn, and when he got back I told him that one of the enemies had crit him. He demanded I reroll it because he didnt see the resuls, and when the rest of the table vouched that I had indeed rolled a natural 20 his response was "The odds of rolling a crit are 1/20, the odds that you guys are all conspiring against me are a hell of a lot higher than that! Now reroll the dice or I am leaving! And he never gamed with us again.

Do I really need to convince you that you are not trusted if you can say stories like this? That player does not trust you to roll dice out of their sight. So don't do that until you earn that trust. Trust is earned and you lost some of it. So use an easier to trust playstyle until you earn enough trust to be seen by your players as trustworthy enough for the playstyle you want to play.

But I am still curious about what you think it is that I am doing to sow distruct. Thats a legit question, not just me being defensive, tone is hard to do in text. I am trying to think about my experiences as a player, and the only DM I really didnt trust pretty much does the opposite of everything I do, so thats no good.

It is a legit question that I have answered in every single post (small hyperbole). Why do you keep asking me to repeat myself? Yeah tone is hard to convey over the internet, but how do you expect me to react to this? I am starting to not trust you because you are acting like you did not hear what I said. It is really frustrating to give advice to someone that appears like they can't hear.

So, you tell me why your players distrust you. Let's see if you have heard and/or internalized what I have said this month.

[Kardwill]

I get what you are saying, I really do, I am just trying to figure out what is the right amount of information.

In your case, the right amount of information is "more than you think". Really. If you think you have given just enough hints to players, then give them more. Much more. The "3 hints" rule is not an average that you can afford to disregard, it is a bare minimum. Give them hints before the event, during the event, after the event in case they have to deal with it again. Lay it out THICK. If your players get tricked anyway, the reaction you should hope for is "D'oh, we should have seen that coming, it was so obvious", not "Holy ****, how were we supposed to know that?"
The players are not in your head, so they will completely miss, disregard or misinterpret most of your hints. Keep throwing more at them until they start to understand, and remind them of older ones they might have forgotten, even OOC. "Do you remember how it reacted when you tried to immobilize it?"

For one thing, my players dont know the monsters very well to begin with, and so just saying "You see a Glabrezu" wouldnt tell them any more than "You see a large demonic humanoid with four arms, crablike claws, and the head of a hound."

Yeah, saying the monster is a blue-fanged-Gxnfr'glr isn't giving information, unless they have the statblock before them. But you can use the environment, the "knowledge" characters, the monster's appearance, to feed them info.
They're going against a monster that uses poisonous gases? Then describe the noxious, chocking vapours aroun its lair, the corpses clawing at their necks, the birds dropping from the air, the vapour pouring from the corners of its mouth, the flash of malice crossing its eyes before it attacks. Tell the ranger or elf that he can smell poison in the air, tell the erudite that it really looks like the hunting grounds of a green dragon, known for their poisonous breath, their curiosity, and their ambush tactics. Or have them rolling skills for the detailed stuff, but still giving them the normal hints if they miss (and be upfront about it : "Roll knowledge nature, 10 difficulty. If you miss, I'll tell you what feels wrong. If you succeed, I'll tell you why.")

Demons like the one you talked about are tricky, because they have a load of hidden abilities and no obvious way to hint at them. Don't use them, or if you do, drop tons of information to the wizard who "just happened to hear about it during her studies"

For your remnant "hydra", for example, did you describe how it laughted/grinned/grew larger each time the sorcerer tried to fireball it, and how it struggled and stopped grinning (or even cried "No. Not again!") when they entangled it? Did you roll the save before them, telling them "Nice one. I'll have to get a 14 to overcome it, right? *Roll" So 11, with my +6 save, that's a 17. Whew, it came close!" Sure, it ain't subtle, but it passes down the information that this spell can work, and that they have 35% odd of success with it.

And if they ask questions? Questions are good, they are the sign that the players are trying to get information and formulate a plan. Feed them useful intel. "Is it strong? - Yeah, it does look really strong, but not as tough as you. You think you could take it down in a wrestling match"

With your players, you can't afford to be subtle. So embrace the obvious and the blatant!

As an example, a few years back the PCs encountered some griffons and wanted to ride them. Now, the MM has a huge list of requirements for riding a griffon, none of which were met, yet the players still assumed I was just making up excuses to shoot down their awesome plan even though I was playing it totally by the book.

Did you shoot down their ideas one by one, or did you feed them information doing so?
"Yeah, it seems willing to let you ride them, but you doubt you'd be able to stay on its back if the ride becomes bumpy. Maybe you could improvise a special saddle? And hard manoeuvers are going to be crazy dangerous if the griffin does a barrel roll or stuff like that in aerial combat. Normally, it takes month for an aerial mount to suppress its instinct and be stable enough for mounted combat. Do you have an idea to mitigate that?"
If you have to shoot down an idea, do it quick and clearly "You need X and Y to do it", but otherwise, feed them information on how they could overcome the difficulty.
Because let's be frank : Riding a griffin to combat IS a neat concept, and players love to do fun, weird stuff like that once in a while, so why not let them have it with a little work?

[zinycor]

I believe I have an advice for you Talakeal.
Focus on GMing a game you believe your players will enjoy.
Try to challenge them in ways you believe they will enjoy being challenged, have the enemies behave in ways that are entertaining, rather than absolutely logical, focus on entertaining your players.

Now, I understand this may seem like obvious advice, but I say that in order for you to earn your players trust this should be your first priority.

For example.

The players arrive to a bunch of genocidal trolls, ready to attack a defenseless town, then, the players decide to talk to the trolls and see if a peaceful agreement can be reached. In that case, I say let them have their ridiculous plan go, throw some dices and ultimately have the trolls coming to peace with the townspeople or have the players in a perfect situation to betray the trolls if they feel like it. Why? Cause that seems like something they would enjoy.

Another example.
An invulnerable monster is guarding a powerful item the players want. Upon retreating and learning about the monster they learn that "it can't be killed by violence" therefore, they feeling smug, go back and hug the monster and give it a kiss in order to kill it. Now, this isn't what you had in mind, but it shows lateral thinking from your players, and seems like it would be fun for them. So sure, the horrible invulnerable monster now cries due to the player's hug and disappears thanking them for showing it love. Why? Cause that seems like a result your players would enjoy.

Now, this isn't a Foolproof method, but I believe that if you focus constantly on being entertaining above anything else for a while, you will get better as a GM and learn a lot from the experience.

[Talakeal]

Unpacking this:
1) You are less distrusted than some even more distrusted DMs. They still don't trust you. Every single horror story of yours in the past 2 months can be partially attributed to their immature reactions to their distrust in you with some event / ruling / encounter as a catalyst.

Your Griffon example is yet another example of you flat out telling me they don't trust you. Just so I can reply "yeah, they don't trust you. Fix that. Increase Transparency and avoid Homebrew in that case. Give them the opportunity to see you can ride a griffon bareback outside of combat but need to train them and get an exotic saddle if they want mounts."

2) Some of the things you have been doing to sow distrust only have that outcome because they already don't trust you. I can run homebrewed puzzle boss monsters in my own groups without an issue. My DM can run a trap encounter that makes me start to panic and have it increase my trust in them due to their handling of it. Those are playstyles that requires more trust from the players. If you require more trust than you have earned, you sow more distrust.
2a) So difficulty, being coy, homebrewing, using legendary actions, using puzzle monsters, optional side encounters, expecting them to use limited use resources, etc. Those are things you can do once you earn enough trust. Without that trust those actions only sow more distrust. Your players are acting out partially because they don't trust you enough.

3) Some of the things you do to sow distrust are from your bad habits you have yet to shake off. Other posters have focused on those so I have not kept track of that list. However I do remember you sometimes fail to demonstrate you have heard a player's grievance, understand that grievance, and desire to address that grievance in whatever way is best for the group, especially if it is not your preference.



Do I really need to convince you that you are not trusted if you can say stories like this? That player does not trust you to roll dice out of their sight. So don't do that until you earn that trust. Trust is earned and you lost some of it. So use an easier to trust playstyle until you earn enough trust to be seen by your players as trustworthy enough for the playstyle you want to play.



It is a legit question that I have answered in every single post (small hyperbole). Why do you keep asking me to repeat myself? Yeah tone is hard to convey over the internet, but how do you expect me to react to this? I am starting to not trust you because you are acting like you did not hear what I said. It is really frustrating to give advice to someone that appears like they can't hear.

So, you tell me why your players distrust you. Let's see if you have heard and/or internalized what I have said this month.

Ok, got you.

When you say "sowing" that, to me, implies that is the root cause. I was trying to figure out what you thought I had done that made my players distrustful in the first place.

But now, if I am reading you correctly, I think you are saying that I have been playing normally instead of taking their distrust into account and thereby made the distrust worse.

[Great Dragon]

But now, if I am reading you correctly, I think you are saying that I have been playing normally instead of taking their distrust into account and thereby made the distrust worse.

That is how I understand the situation.

Some of your players do make the trust issue more of a problem, usually by over-reacting - and then expecting you to "fix the problem" even if they don't explain what the problem is.
(at least not without lots more drama)

I do recall that Bob's main problem was that he expected to be able to dominate every session as if playing a Video Game on Super Easy Mode with a Walk-through Guide provided by you.
Last I saw, Bob has gotten better.

I'd have to go back and reread this Thread to correctly post about Brian.
(I'm getting ready to DM today.)
Am I close with the guess of Mistrust do to (perceived) "Surprise/Gotcha" encounters?

[OldTrees1]

Ok, got you.

When you say "sowing" that, to me, implies that is the root cause. I was trying to figure out what you thought I had done that made my players distrustful in the first place.

But now, if I am reading you correctly, I think you are saying that I have been playing normally instead of taking their distrust into account and thereby made the distrust worse.

That is a decent summary. Thank you, that helps reduce the frustration.

0) For every person A, there is a limit on how much they trust person B. This fact of human nature is the root cause.

1) Exerting power that people don't trust you to use, increases distrust. This is what you did at some point initially and continued to do.*

2) Different playstyles (and actions within a playstyle) request different thresholds of trust. It is a continuum that just keeps going up and up. And there are relationships that can allow some really high trust thresholds.

3) Your "normally" asks for much more trust than the players are willing to give you. In some areas you ask for more trust than normal. In many other areas the players are less trusting than normal. But comparisons to normal are worthless because you need the player's trust, not the trust of some statistical norm.

4) You can correct that by demonstrating you are worthy of that trust.

5) However to demonstrate you are worthy of trust you must cease to increase distrust (see #1).

6) So, how can you make a temporary playstyle that requests less trust than your paranoid players are willing to extend to you?

*Knowing your history, you might have also made another root cause. You might have failed to live up to the expectations tied to trust they extend to you. Or in other words, you might have "betrayed their trust" in some manner. This might have happened once or several times. But all evidence of that would have been rendered imperceptible with the passage of time combined with this process of creating more distrust.

[Great Dragon]

6) So, how can you make a temporary playstyle that requests less trust than your paranoid players are willing to extend to you?

@ Talakeal: Some suggestions (may be repeating)

1) Roll all dice openly.

2) Be prepared to show the Module or Encounter Notes (especially if Homebrewed) to "prove" that you are not "Inventing things on the Spur of the Moment."

3) Allow (or provide) information on monsters, even if OoC with the various Monster Manuals.

4) Drop "IC Only" and go "OoC/Meta" to avoid outright "Lies".

Other things that might be needed

Talking to each Player to determine where they stand, and what they feel needs to be done for you to earn their trust again.

Talking to the group to confirm Genre and Style for all sides match.

Deciding how much "compromising" your really willing to do.

[Quertus]

You keep talking about me sowing distrust, which implies there is something I am doing to cause it, and while I cant rule it out, I am not sure if this is the case. I have played with these guys under other DMs, and they trust me far far far more than they trust these other guys.

They also dont trust one another. I remember one time when a player used the bathroom while I was taking the monster's turn, and when he got back I told him that one of the enemies had crit him. He demanded I reroll it because he didnt see the resuls, and when the rest of the table vouched that I had indeed rolled a natural 20 his response was "The odds of rolling a crit are 1/20, the odds that you guys are all conspiring against me are a hell of a lot higher than that! Now reroll the dice or I am leaving! And he never gamed with us again.

But I am still curious about what you think it is that I am doing to sow distruct. Thats a legit question, not just me being defensive, tone is hard to do in text. I am trying to think about my experiences as a player, and the only DM I really didnt trust pretty much does the opposite of everything I do, so thats no good.

Also, nitpick about your nitpick, yes they wanted to ride the griffons in combat. Also, you missed the part about needing to buy an exotic saddle before being able to ride them at all.

Ok, got you.

When you say "sowing" that, to me, implies that is the root cause. I was trying to figure out what you thought I had done that made my players distrustful in the first place.

But now, if I am reading you correctly, I think you are saying that I have been playing normally instead of taking their distrust into account and thereby made the distrust worse.

Have you played (or read about) Vampire: the Masquerade? In particular, it's Humanity mechanic? In short, if you commit an act worse than your current (lack of) humanity allows you to ignore, you run the risk of losing more humanity.

Same thing with trust. Only backwards.

You have a "trust" score. It's really low. Whenever you take an action that requires greater trust (ie, many if the actions you've taken), you "sow distrust", and run the risk of your trust rating dropping even further.

Instead, you need to keep your actions to those well below your trust rating, and work on spending XP to raise your trust rating to the point where you can run the games that you want to run.

(EDIT: mind you, when successful, this is a process that takes years (usually around 5). I expect you, with your group, will suffer setbacks. So expect that this will take decade(s) of commitment)

[kyoryu]

Ok, got you.

When you say "sowing" that, to me, implies that is the root cause. I was trying to figure out what you thought I had done that made my players distrustful in the first place.

But now, if I am reading you correctly, I think you are saying that I have been playing normally instead of taking their distrust into account and thereby made the distrust worse.

I think you need to worry less about assigning blame. You can do things that are okay, and they can do things that are okay, and they can just be not okay together.

I do think you can do better at disclosure of information. That might not have been as bad of an issue with a different group. Your group could be better at trusting, which wouldn't be an issue with a GM that was better with disclosure.

It doesn't matter who is wrong. What matters is that you're not getting the result you want, so what can you do to get the result you want? As long as you're worried about who is "wrong", you will likely defend your actions, and since there are things you can do, you need to look at your own actions critically if you want things to get better.

[Segev]

I'm going to suggest, again (because I'm not sure the previous suggestion was seen), that Talakeal run a straightforward 5e dungeon. I know that's not his system, but I think that running a system he didn't create, using a module written by somebody other than him, run straight and by-the-book with the dice falling where they may, will go a long way towards giving him a means of trying to build trust back up.

After they've cleared a room or section of the printed dungeon, if they have any questions, you can even be open about what the module says about it. Show them what it put in there.

Based on my own experience, I recommend Tales From the Yawning Portal's first dungeon, the Sunless Citadel. Start at level 1, run the dungeon as written with no modifications.

Tell them, up front, when they've alerted enemies in ways that might change enemy behaviors, but don't look for excuses to do so. (My own PCs have heavily disrupted the goblins in the second level and then found themselves in need of a long rest, leaving the dungeon's denizens almost 18 hours to prepare, though they had a nigh-unassailable place to hole up in. This has necessitated me determining what forces redeploy to where and what tactics they'll be using. I only did this because of the time scales involved and the choices made by the PCs.) You should not change things unless your players are attempting to have 15 minute adventuring days; otherwise, run it as written, with monsters only responding as the dungeon module dictates (some rooms say that loud disturbances draw monsters from other areas).

By running a pre-printed dungeon with a system you didn't design, you can demonstrate that things weren't set up by you to "get" your players.

You may also see where D&D 5e thinks the right balance of challenge is; I can tell you that, as a DM, I don't feel like I'm pressing my players very hard with the way things are set up, but they seem to think things are risky a lot more often. So I'm bettering perceptions are different on each side of the DM screen. You may be surprised by how easy things are in 5e for player characters.

Or maybe you won't, because dice luck and player tactics will be different. I'm not sure.

[OldTrees1]

I'm going to suggest, again (because I'm not sure the previous suggestion was seen), that Talakeal run a straightforward 5e dungeon. I know that's not his system, but I think that running a system he didn't create, using a module written by somebody other than him, run straight and by-the-book with the dice falling where they may, will go a long way towards giving him a means of trying to build trust back up.

After they've cleared a room or section of the printed dungeon, if they have any questions, you can even be open about what the module says about it. Show them what it put in there.

Based on my own experience, I recommend Tales From the Yawning Portal's first dungeon, the Sunless Citadel. Start at level 1, run the dungeon as written with no modifications.

I have played through that dungeon as a player. I agree it would work if it is run "as is". To the DM it might feel easy, but we lost 2 PCs. So "easy" is going to be perceived as "average/hard" by the players.

Talakeal's group will still run into some pain points during Sunless Citadel, but they will be fewer, less severe, and be potential learning moments.

In particular be careful before/during/after the party encounters each of the Dragon, Goblin Leader, and final boss.

[Great Dragon]

Talakeal's group will still run into some pain points during Sunless Citadel, but they will be fewer, less severe, and be potential learning moments.

In particular be careful before/during/after the party encounters each of the Dragon, Goblin Leader, and final boss.

From both a Player and a DM view, I also suggest for Talakeal to be cautious RP-ing the Kobold leader.
IiRC, she's a Sorceress and very much self-important and egotistical. (So is the Dragon, but maybe the Players won't be mad at the DM for RPing a non person?)

For the test run, I'd just stick to Narrative mode for all the Boss Encounters.

[Talakeal]

I'm going to suggest, again (because I'm not sure the previous suggestion was seen), that Talakeal run a straightforward 5e dungeon. I know that's not his system, but I think that running a system he didn't create, using a module written by somebody other than him, run straight and by-the-book with the dice falling where they may, will go a long way towards giving him a means of trying to build trust back up.

After they've cleared a room or section of the printed dungeon, if they have any questions, you can even be open about what the module says about it. Show them what it put in there.

Based on my own experience, I recommend Tales From the Yawning Portal's first dungeon, the Sunless Citadel. Start at level 1, run the dungeon as written with no modifications.

Tell them, up front, when they've alerted enemies in ways that might change enemy behaviors, but don't look for excuses to do so. (My own PCs have heavily disrupted the goblins in the second level and then found themselves in need of a long rest, leaving the dungeon's denizens almost 18 hours to prepare, though they had a nigh-unassailable place to hole up in. This has necessitated me determining what forces redeploy to where and what tactics they'll be using. I only did this because of the time scales involved and the choices made by the PCs.) You should not change things unless your players are attempting to have 15 minute adventuring days; otherwise, run it as written, with monsters only responding as the dungeon module dictates (some rooms say that loud disturbances draw monsters from other areas).

By running a pre-printed dungeon with a system you didn't design, you can demonstrate that things weren't set up by you to "get" your players.

You may also see where D&D 5e thinks the right balance of challenge is; I can tell you that, as a DM, I don't feel like I'm pressing my players very hard with the way things are set up, but they seem to think things are risky a lot more often. So I'm bettering perceptions are different on each side of the DM screen. You may be surprised by how easy things are in 5e for player characters.

Or maybe you won't, because dice luck and player tactics will be different. I'm not sure.

I don't know. I would be up for it if I could expect results in a reasonable amount of time, but giving up not only the joy of gaming but the free time of not gaming for a periods of months or years for something that may or may not work doesn't really sound appealing.

I am also not really looking forward to going back to D&D with no house rules; every time I have tried that in the past it has been nothing but taking a long rest after every encounter, killing everything that moves for extra XP, and abusing every poorly worded rule in the book.

I mentioned the idea to Brian, and he was legitimately terrified of the idea as he though that no amount of good gaming would change Bob's paranoid nature but going easy on him would surely ramp his sense of entitlement up to 11.

[zinycor]

I don't know. I would be up for it if I could expect results in a reasonable amount of time, but giving up not only the joy of gaming but the free time of not gaming for a periods of months or years for something that may or may not work doesn't really sound appealing.

I am also not really looking forward to going back to D&D with no house rules; every time I have tried that in the past it has been nothing but taking a long rest after every encounter, killing everything that moves for extra XP, and abusing every poorly worded rule in the book.

I mentioned the idea to Brian, and he was legitimately terrified of the idea as he though that no amount of good gaming would change Bob's paranoid nature but going easy on him would surely ramp his sense of entitlement up to 11.

Well, the advice here is obvious and has been given to you multiple times now...

As I see it, the fundamental problem here is trust, and sadly, there isn't an easy way to create trust with people that aren't easy to trust anyone.

[Segev]

I don't know. I would be up for it if I could expect results in a reasonable amount of time, but giving up not only the joy of gaming but the free time of not gaming for a periods of months or years for something that may or may not work doesn't really sound appealing.

I am also not really looking forward to going back to D&D with no house rules; every time I have tried that in the past it has been nothing but taking a long rest after every encounter, killing everything that moves for extra XP, and abusing every poorly worded rule in the book.

I mentioned the idea to Brian, and he was legitimately terrified of the idea as he though that no amount of good gaming would change Bob's paranoid nature but going easy on him would surely ramp his sense of entitlement up to 11.

I've been running Tomb of Annihilation since May 2019, on a weekly basis (with one or two missed sessions). Sunless Citadel is a dungeon I've inserted into it, with some flavor changes: the goblins are now baitiri of the Smoky Jaguar tribe (which uses goblin stats), for example, and the hobgoblins are the deposed captain from Jahaka Bay and his most loyal crewmen. Still hobgoblins, mind. And all the iron is bronze or brass, and verdigris'd or patina'd rather than rusty.

If you cut out all the sessions they spent traveling the wilderness and going back and forth, I'd say they spent about 2 sessions clearing most of the upper floor of the Sunless Citadel itself. They're likely to take 3-4 sessions total to clear the bottom floor (which they've spent 1.5 sessions on so far, with significant work done to clear the back half of the top floor because their second foray had them entering through the underdark access on the bottom floor).

I'd estimate that you could probably do the entirety of Sunless Citadel in... let's see: 1 session for any town stuff, though probably less; 1 session for the entry and a first encounter with the kobolds; 1 session for the "dragon priest" branch; another session to finish up with the kobolds & the rat queen and start dealing with the goblins (4 sessions so far); 1 session to lead up to and finally deal with the hobgoblin leader (5 sessions so far); and then probably 2 sessions to deal with the bottom floor. It's big, but spread out rather than chok full of encounters. So round that up to about eight sessions to run the whole dungeon-adventure, if you start fresh with level 1 PCs in Oakhurst (the barely-provided "nearby town" to start in).

So if you run it every week, that's probably 2 months to run the whole of Sunless Citadel.

I'm impressed by OldTrees1's comment that they lost two PCs; I suppose I see how it CAN happen, if something gets lucky with a mighty hit, but I've yet to really come close to killing anybody. I've had them convinced they were near losing a PC, but the death save mechanics are quite forgiving as long as you don't maliciously sacrifice actions to permakill PCs when there are active living threats still to go for.

Then again, my players love to try to negotiate, with one exception (and she lets the others talk her out of it, then holds it against them if ANYTHING goes wrong, or if nothing does, because she's a half-orc murderhobo--er, barbarian).

As to every encounter being followed by a long rest, the Sunless Citadel is a living space for two warring factions of humanoid monsters (kobolds and goblins); they are described as occupying certain areas by default, but noise can attract them, and they do wander about. Short rests are PROBABLY safe, but if they stop for 23 hours after spending 15 minutes clearing a room, they're going to alert the enemies and have those enemies coming down on them.

You avoid making this a "trust" issue by telling your players of such risks. The Sunless Citadel even has a random encounters table for "every 12 hours" they spend in the dungeon.

Don't house rule it. That's part of your players' trust issues: they think that, since you're house ruling away things they want to do to feel "safe," you're "obviously" out to get them.

If Bob feels more entitled, there's nothing to be done about it, but at the very least, you can see if he is happier. If not, then nothing will make him happy, and you can stop worrying about whether he's happy or not. Invite him to leave if he doesn't like it, and just run your games how you like. If it does make him happier, is that really being "more entitled," or is it just finding his comfort level?

You deal with entitlement by refusing to engage with it. Tell them "no" when they push; stick with what's there. If they do call out something they should be getting, be reasonable in giving it to them. Being told, "Ah, you're right, that should be as you say," when they are in fact right can be as important as being told "no, we're not doing it that way" when they have it wrong. The former shows that you're not "always against" them. The latter is telling them to stop whining when they don't like the answer. Asking once is fine. Arguing after the session for it can be okay, depending on the group and the attitude. But being a jerk during the session is grounds to be invited to leave the session and come back when he can play the game as-is rather than whining that it isn't what he wants it to be.

And having an established module is a perfect way to ensure he doesn't get any steam for you being "against" him. He's either right or wrong about what the module says.

You'll still have to make judgment calls. I'd go so far as to be deliberately generous with them, at least for this experiment. If a judgment call comes up, ask yourself how you can make it most in their favor. IF they've asked a "mother may I" type question, answer that they may (metaphorically) when judgment is in order and the module doesn't clearly state an answer.

[Talakeal]

@Segev:

I wasn't explicitly talking about Sunless Citadel, more about the idea of running pre-published modules using pre-published systems with no homebrew or changes until I have built up trust with my players.

And yeah, if I don't let them take long rests in the dungeon, they will simply go back to town after every encounter.

[OldTrees1]

I'm impressed by OldTrees1's comment that they lost two PCs; I suppose I see how it CAN happen, if something gets lucky with a mighty hit, but I've yet to really come close to killing anybody. I've had them convinced they were near losing a PC, but the death save mechanics are quite forgiving as long as you don't maliciously sacrifice actions to permakill PCs when there are active living threats still to go for.

1) The PCs are low level and the Dragon is a Dragon. There was a massive damage death.
2) The final encounter had some bad luck and I forget if there was a way downed characters still took damage.


@Talakeal,
There are countless ways your current situation is not a good situation. There are countless ways a better version of yourself with a better group of players, with more similar playstyle preferences would have been a better situation. You are insisting to stay with this group. You are the person asking for advice. So all we can do is tell you what you can do to improve the overall situation. If you think the choice is between you sacrificing your enjoyment or your player's dealing with a DM they don't trust. Then you need to reconsider leaving. Don't turn into a bad DM.

[Segev]

@Segev:

I wasn't explicitly talking about Sunless Citadel, more about the idea of running pre-published modules using pre-published systems with no homebrew or changes until I have built up trust with my players.

And yeah, if I don't let them take long rests in the dungeon, they will simply go back to town after every encounter.

The "Sunless Citadel Overview" box on page 11 of TFtYP includes a paragraph headed by the words, "Monsters on Alert."

The kobolds and the goblins respond similarly if attacked. Intruders who fall back to take a long rest before dealing with the leaders of an attacked community allow the creatures time to make preparations. Alerted monsters reinforce cleared rooms with forces previously stationed in other rooms. For example, three kobolds from area 16 could be stationed in area 15 with orders to set up an ambush for returning invaders. Or, four goblins from area 36 could be redeployed to area 32 to guard against another intrusion. Keep track of such changes, so that characters don't encounter the same kobolds or goblins twice.

I will add to this to suggest that the random encounter table be rolled for each 12 hour period they're outside the dungeon and that they run into these in previously-cleared rooms in addition to the forces specifically moved around the dungeon. It's clear that not everything that lives here is present in the dungeon at all times.

Finally, they should encounter a few twig blights every time they're heading there or back from town.

Do point out that the monsters are loose in the world too and from town. Do point out that the monsters in the dungeon will know they've been there are prepare for their return if they give them time to do so.

There are clear breakpoints where long rests won't have this detrimental effect. IF they make alliance with the kobolds, for instance, they can long rest before encountering the goblins. IF they kill off the kobolds, or only alert the kobolds and hole up in a room between kobold and goblin territory, they could long rest with minimal chance of interruption and then move on. If they wipe the goblins on the top floor, the bottom floor goblins are unlikely to be alerted.

So long resting is not always penalized, but it comes at natural breakpoints if done responsibly.

As part of trust-building, you just need to point out to the players why long resting or retreating to town to long rest at any particular point will have certain consequences.

[Kardwill]

As part of trust-building, you just need to point out to the players why long resting or retreating to town to long rest at any particular point will have certain consequences.

And with Talakeal's group, I can already hear them crying foul, like "you never let us manage our ressources at our own pace", "You just negated everything we did", stuff like that. IIRC, we're talking about the group that was complaining that any enemy should already have expended most of their spell slots / ammos / healing items /ressource when they encounter them. And complains even more when an enemy is prepared for them. And complains when there is a time pressure.

I'm not sure a dynamic dungeon would be the trust-building experience we seek, since it typically demands heavy adjudication from the DM. Personally I like them (I find static dungeons silly, unless there's a thematic reason for it like a forgotten tomb with untinking undead guardians), but for these players? I don't know.

[Segev]

And with Talakeal's group, I can already hear them crying foul, like "you never let us manage our ressources at our own pace", "You just negated everything we did", stuff like that. IIRC, we're talking about the group that was complaining that any enemy should already have expended most of their spell slots / ammos / healing items /ressource when they encounter them. And complains even more when an enemy is prepared for them. And complains when there is a time pressure.

I'm not sure a dynamic dungeon would be the trust-building experience we seek, since it typically demands heavy adjudication from the DM. Personally I like them (I find static dungeons silly, unless there's a thematic reason for it like a forgotten tomb with untinking undead guardians), but for these players? I don't know.

Part of (re)building trust is being firm in NOT giving everything they want. They can whine about it, but he tells them going in, tells them as they're making choices, and then reminds them when they commit to those choices, so there's no deception by the DM. They can't decide he's claiming to be fair when he isn't if he tells them ahead of time what to expect based on their choices.

And Sunless Citadel is only "dynamic" if the players are incautious or try to pull 15-minute-adventuring-days. The most the "incautious" dynamics come in is that monsters from other rooms will come at the sound of danger. And several of the encounters don't even do that: instead, the monsters set up an ambush in the next room, waiting for the PCs to come to them, if they hear the PCs acting. It even calls out that they wait "at least 10 minutes" before investigating, if the PCs take a while to come into the room.

"You never let us use our resources the way we want!" is just whining, and should be firmly replied to with, "I'm letting you use them however you want; I'm just telling you the likely consequences of your choices so that you can make a fully-informed decision about how to use them."

Being firm but open about likely consequences is how you build trust. Trust isn't the same as "always being perfectly happy." It hinges on belief that the world the DM is running will make sense, and that they can trust the information the DM gives them to be accurate and not contain any "gotchas."

It's not a "gotcha" if the DM warns them ahead of time of the consequence. A "gotcha" only occurs if the DM waits for the players to commit to a decision, then reveals information they didn't have when making the decision that changes what they would otherwise have done.

"Gotchas" are not always bad, but they're devastating to trust. But a dungeon that has consequences for choices is not a "gotcha," especially when the consequences are spelled out (either as likely or as certain, depending on how much info is hidden; it's certain that monsters will take a full day, given the time, to shore up defenses, but it's not certain if there are monsters beyond THIS door who will change behavior if the party is loud. Only that monsters who hear the party through a door will behave accordingly.)